Lovingly Ripped-Off

A wonderful tactic in marketing is to take a fixture (such as a commercial or printed ad) and tweak it until it gives the audience a fresh perspective while drawing them in to your product.

I have here an example of this great tactic:

When the original Gears of War came out, many consumers loved the ad in which the hero of the game trudges through our now destroyed world while the remake of Tears for Fears' Mad World (done by Gary Jules) is playing. It's a classic ad for many in the video game world (and I believe that Rex was a big fan).



Now Electronic Arts has a new game called Battlefield: Bad Company. The ads for the game take known ads or games (so far Metal Gear Solid, Rainbow Six, and Gears of War) and make fun of them to show how fun, yet silly the game is. The "Bad World" ad is below.



This ad works as it shows:
1. Humor
2. Action
3. It takes an ad which most gamers know, and puts its own unique spin on it.

There are many examples of this, but this most recent one has been getting some interesting attention.

Many gamers have said that between the action and the humor in the ads, they would purchase the game. That means the marketing is working.

Namaste.